Toxic Waltz was founded in 2009 in Bavaria/ Germany to play an exciting Bay Area Influenced Thrash Metal. Well, for most of the Thrashers this is quite obvious, giving the band’s name, but, believe me, this isn’t another clone of Exodus or Heathen. Although the band is young, it has a lot of personality, character and an outstanding musicianship.

Vocals are rough and powerful, the guitars are very aggressive, as any decent Thrash Metal needs (I really, really love the guitar harmonies), drums and bass are very well done as well, in my humble opinion. And as for the whole work, the music/ songs themselves, they do feel energetic and very impressive for such a young band. The acoustic parts were indeed something that I wasn’t really expecting and an outstanding addition.

Sometimes, when listening to this album, the instrumental side reminds of Holy Terror, one of my favorite Thrash Metal bands, which, unfortunately split-up a few years ago and their classic vocalist, Keith Deen, passed away in 2012 due to cancer. But that’s just my view, the main influences are indeed Testament, Exodus, Dark Angel, Forbidden, among others. As for the German Thrash Metal, don’t expect to listen to influences on Decades of Pain, perhaps some Kreator here and there, but that’s just it.

Production-wise, there’s nothing to complain about at all. The sound is great and you can even mistake this album being produced and released by a major label, when, in fact, Decades of Pain is self-released.

The only aspect that I personally feel they could… well not improve, but to simply try, as it’s a matter of what they want to record/ compose or not, is to feature more faster songs, as that’s what most of the Thrash Metal fans enjoy. But this is just a tiny suggestion, Toxic Waltz, as I said before, has character and will release what they think is their best and not what people want them to play.

You can clearly conclude, by listening to Decades of Pain, that Toxic Waltz truly loves what they play, good old-school Bay Area Thrash Metal. This album is the living proof and a fresh air for me, as we’ve seen the rise of many bands that are simply clones and doesn’t try to add anything new, like Toxic Waltz does. I hope to hear more and more of this Toxic Thrash Metal that managed to make me headbang!